when you're bored and you know it

Funny what you discover on the Internet:

Anna looks like she has a clarinet up her nose!

Anna looks like a Special Olympics participant when she's trying to run

Anna looks like rain.

Anna looks like a different person in every panel

Anna looks like she smells something bad

Anna looks like Pingkan Mambo (yeah!)

Anna looks like Underdog Lady from the Howard Stern show.

Anna looks like in an emulator (?)

Anna looks like she's going to vomit as the MC quotes Harper Lee and mentions Atticus Finch and talks about all the great reasons why great people are great .

Anna, looks like you're having fun this summer traveling around 'ol Mexico

Anna looks like Shirley Temple, Katherine Hepburn, Demi Moore and Uma Thurman. Oh, and Muhammad Ali.

Anna looks like a toothpick (why i oughta!)

Anna looks like she's been struck (I always am)

Anna looks like she MIGHT have worked at Hooters

Anna looks like she is handling everything great

Anna looks like a rabbit in a barbie car.

Anna look like she needs a makeover (why i oughta!)

Anna looks like an adolescent at age two (i was never young, really)

Anna looks like her daddy too

Anna looks like she was born to play guitar, doesn’t she?

Anna looks like a joke

Anna looks like a great day out (aw…)

Anna looks like a mess in the rest of my pictures

Anna, looks like it’s neither of our years.

Anna looks like she belongs in our family (really now? think twice, buster)

Anna, looks like me and u are on the same boat (yep. the same shitty boat)

Anna, looks like a lovely place to be

Anna looks like that kid at the family reunion that is sick of having her cheeks pinched by well-meaning relatives (my life in a nutshell)

Anna looks like a modern woman on the prowl

Anna looks like a peasant

Anna looks like she’s having a blast

Anna looks like a Norwegian goddess who can hammer out notes as if she were Thor.

Anna looks like the photographer has taken her by surprise

Anna looks like a demented dwarf

Anna, looks like we goofed

Anna looks like she really takes dog grooming to the next level

Anna looks like she's playing a virtual reality game

Anna looks like a grumpy, unhappy, miserable sunflower

Anna looks like now!

Works on Paper
by Alice Fulton

A thrilling wilderness of bio-morphic script, you said
my letters scared you. And it's even worse
in person: pink oil of lipprints, unnervingly organic Hi's,
those kisses like collusions. For a moment
we vibrate like underwaterstones. What is this windfall? We are not
easily becalmed. How you pull back
as if to deflect affection. How I pull
back, swear to work at blandness, clothe myself
in jokes. Graft the properties of bland
to the social handshake
and we'll have it: how to get through
this world intact. Placebos do
nicely—expressions never pointblank but fixed
like bets between grin and grimace.What I work to know is whether passion,
roaring, snapping its head, can be prelude
to entertainment, harmless as MGM'sold lion.
And is seduction a scienceor a pattern of cheap frills; can you make it
from a kit? What suave
improverishments we chose.
And I can do it: fake
formality, dissemble
with the best, lady it
over lessers: Pick me!Pick me! Of course not
to care, to keep
the heart complacent as a dumpling,that's hard. What of emotions
that grow so steep they can't holdshape and the pinnacle
leaps forward, breaking as it does
in waves. I'm afraid
those emotions keep us lonely.I'm afraid there are no bribes
equal to the body-guards. We love surface
articulation. And when we say
Abandon abandon we mean it
as a command. Here's an illustrative touch:
Delacroix, old realist, got so excited
entering a harem's room he had to be calmed
down with sherbets. Passion! Maybe
it only works on paper. But once
in a well-lit room I buried my face in the material,
shirting, that opened to darker emulsions, rich
scents unlike others as burnt umber unlike other colors. It was about expansion.
There were brief constellations
down the willing
nerves, an effulgence: worth it, worth it.

there are oracles and there are the indigo girls

indigo girls. creepy stuff.

i don't know if it was real or in a dream
lately waking up i'm not sure where i've been
there was a table set for six and five were there
i stood outside and kept my eyes upon that empty chair
and there was steam on the windows from the kitchen
laughter like a language i once spoke with ease
but i'm made mute by the virtue of decision

and i choose most of your life goes on without me
oh the fear i've known
that i might reap the praise of strangers
and end up on my own
all i've sown was a song but maybe i was wrong

i said to you the one gift which i'd adore
the package of the next 10 years unfolding
but you told me if i had my way i'd be bored
right then i knew i loved you best born of your scolding
when we last talked we were lying on our backs
looking at the sky through the ceiling

i used to lie like that alone out on the driveway
trying to read the greek upon the stars
the alphabet of feeling

oh i knew back then
it was a calling that said if joy then pain
the sound of the voice these years later
is still the same

i am alone in a hotel room tonight
i squeeze the sky out but there's not a star appearing
begin my studies with this paper and this pencil
and i'm working through the grammar of my fears

oh mercy what i won't give
to have the things that mean the most
not to mean the things i miss
unforgiving, the choice still is
the language or the kiss

when new heroes look like old ones

The god abandons Antony
by Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933)

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by with exquisite music,
voices, don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive—
don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say it was a dream,
your ears deceived you: don’t degrade yourself
with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window and listen with deep emotion,
but not with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen—your final delectation—
to the voices, to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

strangely flattered

HUWAG KA SANANG MAGAGALIT

Huwag ka sanang magagalit
kung sasabihin ko
na hanap-hanap ka
ng aking mga tula.

Huwag ka sanang maiilang
kung tuwing umuulan
isip-isip ko ang init
ng ating katawan.

Ngayon, butas lamang
sa langit ang lahat ng bituin,
Ngayon, sukatan lamang ang buwan
ng layo mo sa akin.

Anumang kuwento
ang simulan ko’y
sa iyo rin nauuwi.
Sa bawat aklat
na aking buklatin
naroroon ang iyong tingin

Alam ko: may sarili kang tanong
na dapat sagutin; may sarili kang misteryo
na dapat harapin.Huwag magmadali: panahon ngayon
ng liwanag at sari-saring dilim;
Oras ng sugat at lamig at ng
paurong-sulong na pagpapaumanhin.

Ngunit Tess, mahal,
pinakamatalik kong kaibigan,
huwag ka sanang magagalit
huwag ka sanang maiilang
kung aking sasabihin

na tuwing humihinga ako
naaamoy kita,
na tuwing pumipikit ako,
ikaw ang nagiging umaga - Ramon Sunico

today, just because

you agree, right? some of these lines should be screaming red.

Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind,
in the commonplaces of the asylum
where the cracked mirror or my own selfish death
outstared me. And if I tried
to give you something else,
something outside of myself,
you would not know that the worst of anyone can be,
finally, an accident of hope.
I tapped my own head;it was a glass,
an inverted bowl.It is a small thing
to rage in your own bowl.
At first it was private.
Then it was more than myself;
it was you, or your house
or your kitchen.
And if you turn away
because there is no lesson here
I will hold my awkward bowl,
with all its cracked stars shining
like a complicated lie,and fasten a new skin around it
as if I were dressing an orange or a strange sun.
Not that it was beautiful,but that I found some order there.
There ought to be something special
for someone
in this kind of hope.
This is something I would never find
in a lovelier place, my dear,although your fear is anyone's fear,
like an invisible veil between us all
and sometimes in private,
my kitchen, your kitchen,
my face, your face. - For John, Who Begs Me Not to Enquire Further, Anne Sexton

SOS

If there was one poem that I wish I'd have written, this is definitely it. I do so hate being depressed. It requires too much energy.

Perhaps I was born kneeling,
born coughing on the long winter,
born expecting the kiss of mercy,
born with a passion for quickness
and yet, as things progressed,
I learned early about the stockade
or taken out, the fume of the enema.
By two or three I learned not to kneel,
not to expect, to plant my fires underground
where none but the dolls, perfect and awful,
could be whispered to or laid down to die.

Now that I have written many words,
and let out so many loves, for so many,
and been altogether what I always was —
a woman of excess, of zeal and greed,
I find the effort useless.
Do I not look in the mirror, these days,
and see a drunken rat avert her eyes?
Do I not feel the hunger so acutely
that I would rather die than look
into its face?

I kneel once more, in case mercy should come
in the nick of time. - Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild, Wild Women, Anne Sexton

it is still too early to dream of you
the herons warn me against it
in my fists, handfuls of fidelity
rise up as dreams, as chaste as rivers.

everywhere, your face.
i wonder how many lifetimes more will
my love be constituted to only this-
a yew tree, waiting under seven suns,
an unsent letter left out in the rain.

II. Jesus got through life by answering surveys.

1. DREAM NICKNAME:

Ilsa. Bwhahaha.


2. WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE?

The pursuit of happiness.

3. I USUALLY SMELL LIKE:

Rust and/or stardust.


4. WHAT MOVIE BEST DESCRIBES YOUR SEXUAL POWERS?

What kind of question is this?

5. CURRENT CELLPHONE RINGTONE:

I dunno what it’s called. My phone’s prehistoric.


7. FAVORITE STORES IN THE MALL:

National Bookstore, Powerbooks, Book Sale. You mean there are others?


8. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD:

Is when you find yourself in the middle of a large group of people or a party and you know you don’t really belong there and that you shouldn’t be there, really. But when you try to think about where you would rather be, you come up with thin air.


9. FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING:

How long it’ll take me to brush my teeth.


10. MOST EMBARASSING CD IN YOUR COLLECTION:

The party CD. It’s got Nelly and Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. The whole gang. I dunno whose is it.


11. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME:

I'm not into counting unhatched eggs, thank you.

12. FAVORITE BAD GUY/S:

James Dean, Tommy Lee, Johnny Depp, Humphrey Bogart

13. BY CHOICE, A TIME MACHINE WILL TAKE YOU WHEN AND WHERE?

1970’s, wherever.


14. IF SOMEONE WAS MADE RULER OF THE WORLD (dead or alive), WHO SHOULD IT BE?

Michael Jackson. He already is, anyway.


15. FAVORITE "SURVIVOR" CHARACTER EVER:

I don’t even watch Survivor.


17. TV SHOWs THAT MAKE YOU LAUGH?

Everybody Loves Raymond, The Late Night Show w/ Jon Stewart, Distraction, Sex in the City, Friends, Saturday Night Live, anything featuring Paris Hilton is bound to be funny.


20. PEOPLE WILL BE SURPRISED THAT I LIKE:

The song Stars are Blind by Paris Hilton. Right.

21. ESTIMATED NUMBER OF TIMES YOU EVER PUKED
FROM ALCOHOL:

Roughly 31 times. I really don't keep count.


22. WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR CHRISTMAS?

All I want for Christmas is you. Hahaha. Nah. What I REALLY want is the Ariel collection by Sylvia Plath, a notebook, and a dishwasher.


23. WHAT'S GONNA BE YOUR WEDDING SONG?

I used to want it to be Real Love by the Beatles. But now, I’m thinking maybe I’d just want a poem read to me. Everyone else has been singing songs.


24. DESCRIBE YOUR TYPICAL SATURDAY NIGHT IN VIVID DETAIL:

Gadzooks! In vivid detail?! I’d rather not, thank you very much.


25. WHAT SONG ALWAYS GETS YOU IN A ROMANTIC MOOD?

Dancing with Myself by Billy Idol

I. Jesus got through life by answering surveys.

1. Favorite breakfast is:

Blueberry pancakes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pardon my excitement. It has been a while.

2. The movie I've watched the most number of times is:

Somewhere in Time and yes, Elizabethtown. It shot down Clueless by a notch.

3. Least favorite subject in school:

Trigonometry. No doubt about it.

4. I spend my leisure time by:

Reading and writing, most of the time. Other times I look for green elephants.

5. Worst smell:

How an air conditioned bus smells at around 2pm when it’s jam packed with people. Week-old garbage.

6. If I could have any car in the world, what would it be?

A hansom cab.

7. Favorite household chore:

Arranging books, getting my stuff out of the way.

8. When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a/ an :

An astronaut, a librarian, a bandaid, a wallflower.

9. Favorite colors:

Daffodil yellow and red.

10. Favorite performer/s:

Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, The Doors, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Vines, Simon and Garfunkel, Mr. Big, Bob Dylan (though I actually don’t think of him as performing), Frank Sinatra, etc.

11. When I die, I'd rather be cremated or buried:

Cremation, and then just scatter my ashes across a body of water so that I can choke little fishies.

12. If I could repeat college, I'd take up:

Creative writing at UP. Then Masters.

13. One thing I can't leave home without:

My mind. Not that it’s detachable. (What the f*** am I saying?) I’m not really good at answering surveys. Honest.

14. First thing I bought with my first salary:

A copy of The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler.

15. I'd like to be remembered as:

Someone who had an interesting life.

16. If a book was made into a movie, would you still bother buying the book?

Depends really. If it was a good book, I probably would have read it before it was turned into a movie.

17. Specialty in cooking?

Green eggs and ham.

18. First crush?

A classmate in 1st Grade. His name is Jeffrey Gagalang. Because we both live in the same small town, we still manage to see each other once in a while. The last time I saw him, though, was 2 years ago.

19. Favorite hangout:

Desolation Row.

20. Best place to shop?

Not fond of shopping.

21. Do you like to watch plays?

Let me put it this way, if I were a millionaire, I’d go see ALL of them.

22. Favorite place in the house?

This is a no brainer. My bedroom, of course. That’s where all my books are.

23. Best gift you've given?

Books that people have been looking for for quite some time. It gives me this queer sense of satisfaction when their faces light up. Priceless!

24. Weirdest gift you've received:

A kettle. It was utterly useless to me during those times.

25. Gift that you want to receive at this moment:

Every book that I’ve been looking for since I was 12.

26. Gift you want to receive on Valentines Day:

A pair of socks.

To a Lover

There are days when you are cucumber.
I sharpen my knife
before I peel your skin off, pretending it is flesh on bones.
Inside you, there is nothing but pulp-
fiction lying in wait for the
next lover to immortalize you in poetry.
I slice you into thin pieces
until you are almost opaque, as transparent
as a memory. Sometimes, I make stars out of you,
or rabbits, depending on where he slept
the night before or if he came home
early.

At times, you are fresh meat.
I keep you under running water for
more minutes than is
necessary. This is because
I don't want your blood on my hands.The
meat looks wrinkled after this prolonged
exposure to water, as if it is hurt by my
insecurity.
I wonder if you look this patient,
this nonplussed while you lie on some
anonymously dingy motel bed
Unlike him, I do not justify your
weaknesses nor do I find
your vulnerability attractive.I wear gloves
to keep my knuckles clean. At times, I
make like a god and
pound at you with my newly bought pestle
until you are as malleable as my heart.I like
putting you in a grinder. It makes me believe
you are human and can be subject to
impermanence.

I have seen you before. You have this way
of wrinkling your nose when you are nervous,
making you look as unthreatening as raw fish and
as unattractive.
I believe that I am not imagining things.
This is why I never make you into soup. You do not deserve
any allusion to warmth, nor kindness.You are
neither as essential as sugar or salt. You
do not have the same confidence that vinegar has.
Your skin may be as smooth as caramel but you seem to me
as naive as fresh pudding, as interesting probably as ordinary spices,
like thyme or rosemary.

In this kitchen, I try to find an end to you.
All around me are the bricks that built my life,
that define who I am. Here, I am free to reinvent you.
Outside, he may consider you kingdom, a harbor,
a masterpiece. But within these walls,
you are in bits and pieces,
wrapped up in foil or sometimes stowed away for future use.
You are reduced to elements, to momentary necessities.
But you never go away. You live here- sleeping on our bed,
peeping through jars,
rotting gracefully on the wooden shelves. You take
the shape of steam rising from noonday kettles.
Your message is darkness and silence.

This is a poem that was sent to me today. I’d like to thank you for taking an interest in my, um, interests.:D

Litany
Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine.- Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass,
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is no way you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner,
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery in the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley,
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's teacup.

But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and- somehow- the wine.

Because I got tagged

Thanks for tagging me, Mike.:D

Books that changed your life?

Changed may not be the right word. Influenced is probably more appropriate. They probably, in one way or another, influenced my writing style, my views about life, how I treat streetcats.

Here's my list of 'influential books'

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams
The Secret Garden - Frances Burnett
Henry and June- Anais Nin
The Bell Jar and Ariel- Sylvia Plath
The Robber Bride and The Blind Assasin - Margaret Atwood
Hard Times- Charles Dickens
Their Eyes Were Watching God- Zora Neal Hurston
The Darling and Other Short Stories- Anton Chechov
Franny and Zooey- JD Salinger
Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Einstein's Dreams- Alan Lightman
White Teeth- Zadie Smith
The Trial and The Metamorphosis- Kafka
Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte
The Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway- Virginia Woolf
Animal Farm- George Orwell
Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy
Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Letters To A Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
The Art of War - Sun Tzu
The Story of an Hour and Other Stories- Kate Chopin

Books you have read more than once?

Some of the books I've read more than once:

Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
Lady Chatterley's Lover, D. H. Lawrence
Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Possession, A. S. Byatt
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Ken Kesey
Persuasion, Jane Austen
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Blind Assassin, Atwood
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
The Stranger and A Brave New World, Albert Camus
The Solitaire Mystery, Jostein Gaarder
The Lord of the Flies,
Henry and June, Anais Nin
The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb
Hotel New Hampshire, John Irving
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
A Room With a View, EM Forster
Far From The Madding Crowd,Thomas Hardy
So far from God, Ana Castillo
White Oleander, Janet Fitch
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos

Books you would want on a desert island?

The Bible, in case I turn over to the other side. You'll never know, really.

Books that made you laugh?

She's Come Undone, most PG Wodehouse books, books by Irving

One book that made you cry?

The Great Gatsby, for some unknown reason.

One book you wish you had written?

The Blind Assassin, The Blind Assassin,The Blind Assassin. Did I mention The Blind Assassin?

One book you wish had never been written?

There are a lot, really. Any Coelho book, The Horse Whisperer, and A Walk to Remember.Ugh. Is there any way that I can ask these authors to just... stop... writing?

One book you are currently reading?

A complete compilation of Edgar Allan Poe's works

One book you have been meaning to read?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. They say it's supposed to be good.

now, they are purely girls

when i was 16, my boyfriend
said he liked girls who were simple.
i did not know what he meant by that. when i asked my mother about it,
she said that simple meant someone was a little gone in the head,
that the screw was
not loose but was already strewn around obscure places
like forgotten car keys, that the light bulb was running short.
short of what? expectations, cunning,
snappy retorts. because of that definition, i thought i
was simple because i liked complicating
things- putting mustard on pancakes, mistaking the moon
for jupiter, reading the newspaper upside down. once,
when we made a trip to the city,
i caught my boyfriend staring at a billboard. it displayed a model
whose lips looked like two fire hydrants
squished together. she was not wearing a
shirt and her legs were splayed into an open parenthesis.
so this is what he meant by being simple, i thought
to myself. I was a bit disappointed when
we drifted apart after that.

but i swore i would never be simple.

at 20, my college boyfriend said he liked
women who were nice. i wondered what he meant by that.
so i tried to act nice. bake sales were nice so i held them
for orphanages. everything was labeled ‘for the benefit of’.
I even worked for mr. petrowski, who was really old and
spat at sunbeams gliding across his
wooden floor in the afternoons.
i adopted stray kittens and did not pick flowers from
restricted areas. but johnny, he broke up with me after 2 months,
6 days, and 2 hours. he said i didn't nurture him enough
and that i was always too busy with my charity work. i didn't understand
what he was saying but he got me at nurture though.
i was, by now, afraid of words that were too reliable to have any kind of
character.

but i swore never to be nice again.

at 27, my lover said he preferred women
who were straightforward. He said he would get
a hooser thinking about women who would
do what they said they would.
I wanted to be that kind of woman but i couldn't
shrug off the image of
my aunt's show dog, the one she couldn't
stop feeding strawberry crackers
to. so everyday, i told him how
i felt about him, even during days when i thought
he was nuts and deserved to be in a straightjacket.
that went well for a time but
after some months, his face took on a sallow, empty
look, like he's been held in prison for years. ten months and he was
running after some woman who had never wanted him anyway.
he was a kite, flying, disappearing into the stilting
blueness of his new apartment.

so i vowed to keep my opinions to myself.

i've changed so much over the years that i feel as
if i've shrunk. sometimes, i believe that i am the size of a
well-reared mouse and i am reaching for something,
a piece of cheese perhaps or one of those celery sticks
but i end up with my hands as empty as
a bell jar- always lacking, always
guessing where is what and what is whom
and why is this what it is and why is that
a never or a nowhere.
these miscued words are
mazes, puzzles, someone’s unfinished needlepoint.
i am gliding through them,
pretending all the while that all the other roads lead
somewhere else other than here.

or maybe it was my choice of men
that did me in- men who could not stand up for
their ideals. somehow, if i am
not simple, or nice, or straightforward, i am no longer what can be
categorized as a counterpart, a rib,
a reservoir that can nurture and
build. but now that they're with women who are fancy,
who are sentimental, who are growing thorns all over their bodies,
i realize that the ideals they paraded around me
were mere hoaxes,
like fairy myths or santa claus. they put
these impossibilities close to their breasts
like steel armors to excuse
themselves from being wounded or from bleeding.
everyday, they burn uncertainties.

but all these fears confound me.
i wonder why when they love, it is
never as simple as boiling a three-minute egg,
or as nice as an unassuming child,
or as straightforward as freedom.
love always has to have a thorn, a perpendicular rainbow,
a hurricane, a mountain made out of beeswax
or else it will not do.

this is actually the reason why i live
with sandy now. i sleep as naked as a jaybird
and even snore at times.
somehow, this is comforting.

i'd like to tag you but i don't know how

1. Your blog "user name" & what it means

Nobody has called me Maria. Ever. Just living out a long, drawn out desire, I guess.

2. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest) how well does your blog represent who you actually are?

I guess it would be a 7. I realize that most of the stuff I write here at times are truly just for posterity. Pardon the French.

3. How much about your life do you post to blog?

Who wants to know?

4. Is there anything you refuse to post about?

To quote Nin, “I never wrote about him, but he is the most important person in my life.” Sacred things. If you can’t stand up for it, don’t write it.

5. On a scale of 1-10 how interesting do you think your own blog is to others?

I dunno, really. It would depend on who’s reading the entries, I guess.

6. From whom/how did you find out about blogs?

From college friends. I’m a really late starter, though.

7. Has anyone ever started a blog because of you?

Yeah. Some of my officemates. But I think they’re not using Blogger.

8. Has anything written on blogs ever caused you to establish, rethink, or even change your belief or position on something?

Oh yeah. But in an entirely distasteful way and on a more sensitive note. Remind me of it and you will probably die.

9. How often do you respond to/comment on other peoples' blogs?

I don’t usually like commenting on people’s works online. If they deserve a commendation, then they should hear it from you personally.


10. Do you prefer to write in your blog than reading other blogs?

I am fond of both, actually. But of course, writing will always come on top. Regarding reading other blogs, I believe that I am supposed to have 9 lives. I’d like to see if that warranty is guaranteed.

11. Have you ever had something mean said to you or have you been stalked, harassed, or did you get into an argument/flame war on your blog (or did it to someone else)?

I have never been a recipient of a single, ugly word. (Note the word recipient)

yowza!

You're The Dictionary!

by Merriam-Webster

You're one of those know-it-all types, with an amazing amount of
knowledge at your command. People really enjoy spending time with you in very short
spurts, but hanging out with you for a long time tends to bore them. When folks
really need an authority to refer to, however, you're the one they seek. You're an
exceptional speller and very well organized.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

something borrowed by subs

A poem sent to me through email. And as for your query, yes, there is nothing wrong with borrowing words as long as they are amply cited and as long as the phrases are as beautiful as these. Thank you.


Please Come Late
Hugo Williams

Please come late,
so that I have almost given you up
and have started glancing round the room,
thinking everyone is you.
Please don't come
until I have started missing you,
thinking I will never see you again,
praying you are lost.
Come too late for me not to notice.
Make me suffer,
wondering what you are doing
on the other side of town,
still in your dressing gown.
Make me beg for mercy
when you pick up a magazine.

Are you looking in your mirror,
suddenly remembering me?
I'm on my second coffee by now,
eating the little bits of sugar in my cup.
Haven't you set out yet?
I decide I don't want to see you after all.
I don't really like you.
I'd rather be on my own.
I know it is all over between us;

but I go on sitting here,
reading a newspaper,
not understanding a word.
If you came in now, I wouldn't recognize you.
Don't come anywhere near me
until I have gone slightly mad for love of you.

because i am in a cycle

"it's time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh over it all again. "- Leonard Cohen

Deciphering fire

“And I made my own way, deciphering fire.”- Pablo Neruda

The first thing that you will notice would be
the absence of the strange coldness that you have been
familiar with since you were five and everyone else knew all the
dance steps to a certain country song except for you. During the
right time, the sudden warmth will lick your shoulders,
your tired hands, your mourning eyes, pulling out its
yardstick to take your measurements. It will need to know
how it would best fit you and during what occasions it would be most appropriate
to display so that you don’t go and nurture the notion that you are anyone
other than yourself. It decides how you will grow and by how many
inches each season. But it knows better than to make you hurry,
to make you want more from it than what is required.
Some say, yellow flowers are composed of this;
water when you are especially thirsty.
It holds the timidity of first love and the grains of sweat
coursing down the backs of rice farmers.
It is the sound you hear when the wind howls and the
echoing loneliness in seashells. But mostly, it is fire, burning down
your mindless rage, renewing the true magnificence
of your own beliefs. But when it becomes too hot and mistakenly stifles you,
it eases its grip slowly but doesn’t dare let you go. It will keep its finger lightly
on one of your shoulders, or will maintain its hold on a particular hair strand.
You are, at times, jealous because you know it doesn’t belong only to you but in these circumstances, insecurity would be as inappropriate as
tulips in May. Only those who do not know,
who do not have the certainty that they are knowledgeable,
are aware that the journey may last long, may lead them astray,
may be perilous, but it will always be as unique
as an unpremeditated gift, as precious as love before dying.
For whatever reason it may have, you are lucky enough that it chose you.
It can never be the other way around.

So be silent and let it lead you. Let it take you home.

Poem sharing!

susanna's death

when her body was all that they had left of her,
he passed the time counting faces that showed
disapproval, disappointment, sometimes relief.
He put their reactions in labeled boxes, to keep the situation more organized.
some of them said she was probably tired and wanted out,
others thought she was wasteful,
jumping in front of that
train like a wounded bird. They are weary and illiterate gods,
strangers to romance. He sees her body outlined in the sky,
like a holy fixture or an ornament that smells of the sun
and of faraway cities.He feels odd,
like he has swallowed torrents of ill will.
There are seconds when he travels outside himself and sees the both of them,
sitting on the bedraggled couch, watching movies where heroes were always
the only ones lucky enough to die. She says she will sing for him
when he keels over. It was always her, surviving,
flourishing in the arms of southern winds. Maybe because she always
seemed younger then. but he has never heard her speak
of her own mortality, which is something about her that he
has not noticed before. He looks in the mirror
more frequently now and hopes that he'll see her
looking through him. They say the dead visit the disbelieving,
the ill-equipped, the needy.
He waits for her prayers.
He does not hear them.

Spider webs

Privilege of Being
Robert Hass

Many are making love. Up above, the angels
in the unshaken ether and crystal of human longing
are braiding one another's hair, which is strawberry blond
and the texture of cold rivers. They glance
down from time to time at the awkward ecstasy--
it must look to them like featherless birds
splashing in the spring puddle of a bed--
and then one woman, she is about to come,
peels back the man's shut eyelids and says,
look at me, and he does. Or is it the man
tugging the curtain rope in that dark theater?
Anyway, they do, they look at each other;
two beings with evolved eyes, rapacious,
startled, connected at the belly in an unbelievably sweet
lubricious glue, stare at each other,
and the angels are desolate. They hate it. They shudder pathetically
like lithographs of Victorian beggars
with perfect features and alabaster skin hawking rags
in the lewd alleys of the novel.
All of creation in offended by this distress.
It is like the keening sound the moon makes sometimes,
rising. The lovers especially cannot bear it,
it fills them with unspeakable sadness, so that
they close their eyes again and hold each other, each
feeling the mortal singularity of the body
they have enchanted out of death for an hour or so,
and one day, running at sunset, the woman says to the man,
I woke up feeling so sad this morning because I realized
that you could not, as much as I love you,
dear heart, cure my loneliness,
wherewith she touched his cheek to reassure him
that she did not mean to hurt him with this truth.
And the man is not hurt exactly,
he understands that life has limits, that people
die young, fail at love,
fail of their ambitions. He runs beside her, he thinks
of the sadness they have gasped and crooned their way out of
coming, clutching each other with old, invented
forms of grace and clumsy gratitude, ready
to be alone again, or dissatisfied, or merely
companionable like the couples on the summer beach
reading magazine articles about intimacy between the sexes
to themselves, and to each other,
and to the immense, illiterate, consoling angels.


Androgyne
Stephen Dunn, Different Hours

My lost love, back when Zeus split us in two --
our intelligence and completeness
a threat to the gods -- this ache
began, this perpetual wandering.

I've seen you in the teeming, concupiscent
streets, I married you, at dusk I followed you
into bars; every time I found you
I recognized you as someone seen before.
I could not choose not to respond to desire.
Only you understand.

Old now, I admit to you
I've been content watching deer
play out their nimble, nervous lives.
I've considered flowers and without sadness
watched them drop their yellow leaves.

In dreams you still whisper to me
and in dreams I whisper back.
But we make fewer plans.

I will tell you, Androgyne, what I learned today
about the sublime. It's that moment
when a compound changes
from one state to another. It's chemistry.
All lovers know it's chemistry,
not physics, that makes the world go round.

And maybe when we meet again
after one of our long journeys towards the other,
you will find me wishing
to do little more than brush back
a lock of hair that's fallen
across your face, too close to an eye.

We'll be sitting side by side,
noontime, in a park.
We'll not be able to see the sun
due to the excess of light.
I'll raise my hand to your face
and you'll tilt your cheek my way,
and I'll move that lock of hair, now gray,
to where I've always liked it to be.

Foreign Window & Irish Rover

thank god for you tube.:D

For you, on a rainy day

because you are my lover, you may believe
that i will not change 'til you say thus,
that my temperament will remain as sweet and amiable as the
soft pattering of raindrops on your shoulders as we kiss;
that my love will persevere
despite changing seasons, holocausts, wars.

because you are my lover, you may believe
that you will be enough to save me,
you remember the way you have salvaged me from so many fears,
you will believe that your hands will always be capable of
protection,
your mouth, of sound advice.

because you are my lover, you may believe
that i will want for nothing;
that this love that we forsake others for
will be our redemption-
the fine balloon of salvation that will succeed in finally lifting us out
of the direness of memories that used to hold us captive and unquenched.

because you are my lover, you may believe
that this love is enough to erase remnants of unsolved history.
you say it is fairy dust sprinkled all over me
or a cloak that you help me put over my confused head.

i would like you to remember that i am only human.

that because of its quality of impermanence, love will tire of weaving
forevers out of drunken silk.
i guarantee only some things:
that i will indeed change, for i will get caught in the frenzy of moments that may
be both taxing and unsensual, all of which may have the power
to eradicate sweetness.
that i will be, at times, dissatisfied with silence and will take to loneliness.
there will be hours that i will not require your company,
seconds when i will be content with solitary pursuits and might forget
to ask you to come along.
there will be wars that i will have to come out of scathed and defeated.
i will sometimes heed the wailing of my own wants and will not ask
you what you think about them.
and like any human being, i will want for something more than who i have become.
i would thirst for other things than what i now have.
and yes, i was only made from dust.
my strength will waver, for i have my own recollections, my own versions of past events that chain me.

but inspite of all this, i give you only
a love that is as real as your left hand,
undiluted and without deception.
it is not a by-product of romance in movies or passionate deaths in novels,
it has never been the kind of love that springs from infinite longing,
but it is as constant as the wind that dried your tears
when your sole comfort was loneliness.

this is all i can give you
for this is all i have.

there, of course, is a fervent wish
that things will be different, that we will be undefeated by
cliches and wanderlust;
that we will be happy and content with only this to adorn our existence.
but if time proves us unworthy of this ideal,
i will claim myself happy
because i have stood beside you,
because i have given you
my version of stars.

Dreaming in the afternoons

i dream of change
like i dream about uneasy seasons
or of fitful warriors dying in chariots that fly faster
than comets;

i dream of change
like it is something that i remember happening;
a glass memory that i have mistakenly placed in someone
else's hands -
hands that i thought were capable enough to hold it.

i dream of change
as if i were
a marching hunger artist,with bagfuls of ideal sacrifices
hoisted on my shoulders.
i know i am tired but my hunger means nothing.
my beliefs propel me to the stars.

i dream of change
as if you were here
as if there were, again, boatrides and candied apples
during eternal afternoons that were as glossy as
newness.

but most of the time, i wake myself out of these dreams.
you can never know where all this freedom will take you.

The real thing

"all my innocence is wasted on the dead and dreaming." - angels of the silences, counting crows

Growing Pains

i am still turning 10 'til now.


On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed. - Billy Collins

Turning Japanese: The New Prozac

"I'm turning Japanese, I really think so." - The Vapors, Turning Japanese

Check this site: www.engrish.com

Hope you likey.